Math and Applied

guissmo

I'm a college-course noob.

I'm a Math person (and slightly a computer programmer, but not THAT interested in programming) and I'm a noob when it comes to knowing what college courses mean.

Anyone can differentiate Math and Applied Math for me?
I mean what jobs do I get for each course?

And also please suggest which course I should be getting to make good use of my Math skills.

Thanks in advance, guys.

infinisa

Maths can broadly divided into 3 areas:
- Pure Maths
- Applied Maths
- Statistics

Pure Maths includes those areas of maths that are studied in their own right, because of their own aesthetic beauty (i.e., without any application as a goal), such as number theory, algebra, analysis, geometry etc. Very often, areas of pure maths turn out to have useful applications - e.g. Riemann's study of non-Euclidean space turned out to be what Einstein needed to model actual space in general relativity.

Applied maths includes those areas of maths that are studied with a view to application to real world problems. e.g. mechanics.

Statistics - Well, as everybody knows, "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics)

As far as jobs are concerned, pure maths by definition will only qualify you for the academic world, except that parts of number theory concerning large prime numbers have an important role in encryption, which of course is a hot topic these days. Applied maths should be more valuable in terms of employment outside academia, but statistics is clearly the most employable branch of mathematics.

Hope this helps.

(By the way, I have a PhD in Pure Maths)